


Tonic

by orphan_account



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Case Fic, Character Study, Depression, Fluff, M/M, Non-Chronological, Non-Graphic Violence, Post good ending, Pre-Slash, Slow Burn, Unreliable Narrator, connor and markus are buds but you don't get to see it much, for now, hank has a lot of emotions, i may be projecting onto connor a little too much here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-27 21:00:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15033230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The reclining chair had been a gift from Hank—something about housewarming—and Connor has never felt the need to get anything else.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to write this fic for two "what if" questions that kept pestering me. the first, because most fics have connor and hank living together, is: what if connor doesn't end up living with hank, and instead finds his own place? the second: what if connor doesn't do so well on the cases he's assigned, and though unsolved cases happen literally all the time all across everywhere, he doesn't know how to deal with that?
> 
> also i want to give a shout out to my wonderful beta, A. thank you for listening to my excitement over this fic and encouraging the angst
> 
> this is going to be a two-parter (or three, depending. i'm aiming for two). at first i wanted to just keep writing the whole thing and post it as one long oneshot, but i realized i just really wanted to get something out there. i'm happy to share this!

There is a familiar coin resting atop his desk, the only thing besides the station monitor adorning its clean surface. Connor picks it up and runs his thumb along the silver face, stare caught and LED whirring.

Hank is not in yet, and most likely will not be in for another two hours, and Connor has to wonder just when the man had placed the coin. Had it been the day before, after receiving the notice from Fowler that Connor could finally return to legally work for the DPD? Or perhaps it had sat there for the entirety of the last few months, a constant reminder that he would be able to come back, one day.

Connor knows he could check in an instant, scan for slight traces of dust and oil from Hank’s own skin, but finds he would rather not know.

He pockets his coin just after rolling it over his knuckles a few times.

 

 

 

As expected, it’s 10:34 AM when Hank walks through those glass doors. He’s been steadily improving recently, Connor knows, but over two hours’ worth of tardiness is still an annoying feature.

Connor watches as the man catches sight of him at the desk, faltering only slightly with a faint smile on his lips before continuing over with a stronger step.

“So you’re really back, huh?” Hank settles into his chair with a sigh. His tone is indifferent, calm.

“Yes,” he says. “I want to thank you, Lieutenant, for advocating for my reinstatement and allowing me to remain as your partner. I know it must not have been an easy task.”

Hank waves the niceties away with a dismissive palm. “Yeah, well…it was nothing.” He very carefully avoids eye contact, instead glancing down at Connor’s hands.

While not completely satisfied, Connor knows how to read Hank.

“You mentioned a case last night?”

 

 

 

Connor had missed this. It’s a foreign feeling, another new facet of life he has to adapt to, but investigating a report alongside Hank leaves his chest somewhat light. He had been away too long.

He worries the emotions are misplaced in a scene such as this, with dried blood turned crimson on the concrete of the alley. Perhaps he should revisit them when his attention needn’t be on solving a murder.

There was no suspected android involvement, merely another case of human violence stemming from the continued abuse of narcotics. This was to be expected, as Hank had been back on homicide with Connor’s absence, and though their government is working diligently to give androids their rights as any other human, it is a long and grueling process. An attack against an android is still considered mere damage to property, a finable offense rather than a murder charge.

“You find anything out over there?” the lieutenant’s gruff voice catches his attention.

Hank is inspecting the body farther along down the alley, his voice echoing off the walls of the surrounding buildings as he calls out to Connor.

Connor makes his way over to Hank, letting his fingers fall from his mouth. His scans run through DNA databases to quickly match the blood to one Abraham Kosinski, though with facial analysis on the corpse he knows this to not be their victim.

“I have a suspect,” Connor relays back to Hank.

 

 

 

Abraham Kosinski is dead in his home, along with one other person Connor identifies as Jordan Everett.

“Ah, shit,” Hank growls. Other officers are already here, milling around the room. The scene shows a much more frantic event than what occurred in the alley. Furniture is either shoved or overthrown, there are glass shards lining the floor underneath empty window frames, and copious amounts of blood stain the carpet and walls around the bodies. These victims seem to have put up a fight.

His reconstruction determines the fight was against each other. It started and ended in the walls of this house, over what he has only one guess. Kosinski has a gun slack in his hand with six stab wounds to his chest and face, and Everett is not far off, two bullet holes in her back.

The corners of Connor’s lips twitch downward, a crease forming between his brows.

“What is it?” Hank had always been too perceptive for his own good. “Why’s your light going all red for?”

Oh.

Connor shakes his head. “Did we miss something in the alley?”

He doesn’t believe they would have, but once Connor had analyzed Kosinski’s blood on the scene they had left rather immediately. He thinks that, perhaps had he waited, taken more time to piece together all the events, he could have found evidence of another’s involvement. Found a better lead than just another victim they can’t question.

It’s a morbid thought, maybe, to classify the loss of life before him as a mere dead end for the case, but the chemistry set in the closet hasn’t gone unnoticed. They were manufacturing the very drug involved in the largest percentage of homicide cases the department’s ever seen. Connor doesn’t feel pity at their expense.

“This kinda shit happens all the time, Connor. Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

He catches the sight of his reflection before stepping into the passenger seat of Hank’s car. His LED is a steady blue.

 

 

 

“Connor!”

Connor blinks his eyes open to Hank’s pinched face. The man stands in front of the couch, hands on his knees as he meets him eye level. It’s still dark in the living room, the only light illuminating his features bleeding in from the porch light outside.

“Jesus, you scared the shit outta me…” Hank sighs, standing straight again before turning back to him. “What the fuck are you doing here?” He doesn’t seem angry, just confused.

There’s movement from the hallway, and Sumo comes over to investigate all the noise, placing a passing lick on Connor’s hand from where it rests atop the arm of the couch. Connor watches Hank watch his dog, the man’s eyes softening when he slumps down atop Connor’s feet.

Connor shifts in place. “The apartment I’d been assigned during the deviant case no longer opens under my serial number. It seems CyberLife wasted no time in clearing me off its list, but I don’t have a place to stay. I…” he hesitates, eyes down. “I’m sorry, but you really must get that window fixed, Hank. It’s been six days.”

Hank huffs out a laugh full of disbelief. “Well I’m not gonna say I’m not angry you broke in— _again_ —but I don’t mind you staying here for a while,” he says. “Up until they let you guys get your own places, you can crash on the couch.”

“I appreciate that.” He doesn’t quite smile.

He doesn’t slip back into stasis either, though according to his servers he still has nearly an hour left to complete the diagnostics. Rather, Connor tilts his head to the side and levels Hank with a look, curious. He runs a quick check of his internal clock.

“What are you doing out of bed so early, Lieutenant? It’s 5:03 AM, and though I did get here at a rather inappropriate time I know I made no amount of noise to have awoken you.”

Hank’s mood seems to change in an instant, face falling into something like tired annoyance. He makes his way to the kitchen and turns on its light, and Connor follows. “Oh what, you know the decibel level or something to get me up?”

“Yes.”

Hank grumbles something under his breath that sounds like, “Of course you fucking do,” but doesn’t seem to want to answer the question. He grabs a bottle of whiskey off the counter and a short glass sitting near the sink and sets them both atop the table.

“Lieutenant—”

“Connor.”

This is not the first time Connor has tried insisting against Hank’s habit of drinking himself further into harm, but it is the first time he bites back the rest of his lecture. Because there is something different about the man’s tone, something that tells him he shouldn’t argue against it.

“It’s real funny, you showing up tonight. Of all fucking nights…” The laugh that Hank lets out is neither warm nor full of humor. It’s strained. He pours himself a glass.

Connor stays at the edge of the kitchen, hovering. “I don't understand,” he admits. “Hank?”

Hank has downed the glass, sets it back down on the table, grabs the bottle again. He doesn’t look at Connor. Instead, he stands up, steps over to the sink, and pours the rest of the alcohol down the drain.

 

 

 

Detective Reed is not someone he missed. The man had thankfully been absent the morning Connor returned to the station, but a day and three bodies in the morgue later saw him loudly crying out his astonishment at the android’s presence.

Connor’s just trying to fill out paperwork, to wrap the case up and not have to focus on the fact that his first assignment back as a paid detective caused a discomfort somewhere within him. He doesn’t like the way it ended.

“Well, would you look at this?” Gavin crows once he’s close enough to Connor to cause a scene. “The plastic asshole actually thinks he’s a real detective now!” Nobody’s really paying attention to him, which he’s sure is for the best.

Connor thinks it fortunate that Hank is not at his desk at the moment, though his partner is never in the break room for long. He looks up from his monitor with a wan smile at Gavin, leaning back a little in his chair. “Good morning, Detective Reed. It’s nice to see you again,” Connor says, as polite as he can be.

It’s an obvious jab, an attempt at undermining the blatant hostility. It just makes Gavin fume.

“I don’t care what that bitch Warren says, you’re a piece of shit toy-for-hire, and nothing more. There is no way I am _actually_ fucking working with a goddamn android,” he snarls.

“Trust me, Detective,” Connor says, “There is nothing I would like more than to avoid working with you as well.”

Gavin looks like he wants to spit something else out, something he thinks will get under Connor’s skin, but a hand on his shoulder stops him. Connor had seen Hank approach, of course, and he feels a rush of satisfaction at the flicker of alarm in Gavin’s eyes.

“You doing alright here, Gavin?” Hank is as casual as ever.

Reed rips his shoulder away from the lieutenant’s grasp with a nasty scoff, shooting both of them a nasty glare. As he walks away, Connor hears him hiss, “Fucking pricks,” under his breath. It really doesn’t bother him.

Hank moves around the L of his own desk to take his seat, Connor following the movement. “Kinda surprised he wasn’t more of an ass there. You okay?” the man asks, raising an eyebrow.

Connor doesn’t know why he can’t meet his eyes for long. He looks back at his monitor, back to the unfinished forms, and says, “Of course.”

 

 

 

They are distant, like this.

He remembers the night he came to Hank’s house, so soon after Markus’ success. Hank had told him he could stay just as long as it took the law to pass stating androids could own property, to own a home. Once that announcement was made, Connor wasted no time in finding his own place to live, because that’s what he thought Hank wanted.

Now though, he’s not too sure if that was the correct decision.

In the six weeks Connor had spent under Hank’s roof, there had been a closeness he’d never felt before. While the start had been an unsteady mix of tense disagreements (usually on account of Connor merely trying to guide Hank into a healthier lifestyle) and awkward conversations (Connor’s ability to make small talk is…adequate), he had known going into it that Hank is not an easy person to get along with. They had barely known each other a week at that point, and that time had been spent half with Hank annoyed with him and half with Connor focused on Markus and the uprising.

They could not have fallen together so easily. Connor would have been concerned if they had.

It had been slow, but they eventually settled into something of a routine, something that worked for them and made Connor feel like he had a bit more of a purpose again. He’d grown to quickly miss the station, miss working and doing the one thing he was programmed to do, but with every day that passed Hank would come home from the very place he longed for and settle Connor’s nerves again, just for a little while longer. Connor was under the impression that Hank needed him in some way, and he liked to feel needed.

And then President Warren announced the list of rights every android was to receive, and Connor had taken that as his cue to leave.

The apartment he owns does not feel like a home to him. It is much too large for an android, has a floor plan designed with a human in mind. Connor returns here after clocking out at the station and saying his goodbyes to Hank and Fowler, the latter of which ignores him, and does absolutely nothing. He has nobody with which he can talk to, doesn’t require a shower after a long day or a meal to sustain his energy for the rest of the evening, and can only waste away his time by imitating the act of sleeping for no more than five hours a night.

Connor hardly smiled even before he moved into this place, but now he fears the motion is completely unavailable to him. When forcing his lips to curl, the expression that meets his eyes in the mirror is not a grin, but a grimace.

 

 

 

“Lieutenant, may—”

“Why do you insist with that? You know to call me Hank.”

“Hm. While true, I feel at work there are certain appearances to keep up.”

They’re on the other side of the interrogation room, standing behind the glass and just watching their suspect grow more uneasy with every minute that passes. Officer Miller is the only other person present. He turns back to look at them over his shoulder, an eyebrow raised.

“Connor, you know you are _the_ only person here that gets that pass?” Chris asks, then shakes his head. “Appearances be damned, you don’t have to do that in front of me.”

Connor doesn’t know quite what he means by “that.” He figures it must have been something embarrassing. Hank’s cheeks sport a noticeable flush, and through a cursory scan he registers the man’s stress levels at a few points higher than normal. He wants to ask about it, and very nearly does, but stops himself at the last moment. Something tells him he would just make the situation worse.

“I’m going to talk to him now,” he says instead, stepping over to the door. He’s tired of waiting for nothing to happen.

 

 

 

Later, after the suspect’s alibi checks out and they’re back to square one with the case, Connor feels worse about his place here.

Deviancy has changed him in every way possible, has realigned his programming and destroyed his directive, and the worry that crept up concerning his ability to do his job is a weight that continues to push him down.

The first case back had tended to that seed of doubt that spun his LED that dangerous red, and with one more failure under his belt he’s starting to think that’s all he’s capable of. Because while he’d had suspects slip away from him during his previous stint playing detective, they had all been by choice of his own.

Letting cases end unsuccessful now is not allowing deviants—his people, he reminds himself—to live, it’s leaving the families of these very _human_ victims to mourn a loss they can’t understand.

“You’re just a bit rusty, Connor. Nobody’s perfect,” Hank tells him.

But Connor had very nearly been so, once, and he wonders if it would be better if he could go back to being that perfectly capable machine. His frustrations wouldn’t be eating at him otherwise.

 

 

 

It’s the start of December, and over the speakers of every shopping center and corner store the faint notes of holiday music can be heard.

Hank’s been given a day off for once, and if Connor had thought the man wanted to spend it behind a beer and in front of the television he would have been sorely mistaken. Though he can’t find it within him to be disappointed—the days he spends alone with Sumo continue to be long and dull.

“You need some clothes,” Hank answers before Connor can even ask the question. They’re outside a strip of outlet stores mostly consisting of clothing departments. There is one building opposite the street from them that’s completely dark inside, yet its sign is still brightly lit, boasting about the new AP700 in stock.

A crease forms between Connor’s brows. “You know I don’t require more than I already have on, Hank. I don’t perspire, and each piece of clothing was designed specifically to avoid becoming worn down.”

He catches the tail end of Hank rolling his eyes, hands shoved into the pockets of his coat as they walk down the crowded sidewalk. There are flecks of snow in his hair and on his shoulders.

“Well that may be just fine, but you have to admit that jacket really isn’t working for you now.”

“What do you mean?”

Hank meets his gaze for just a moment before glancing away and shaking his head in disbelief. “Oh what, you’re gonna make me say it?” At the silence that follows, he continues, “It’s CyberLife’s uniform! The triangle, that bright blue band, your goddamn model number? You fought for your freedom, Connor, maybe you should start looking like it.”

He doesn’t miss the spike in Hank’s core temperature at those words. Anger, stress, embarrassment? He can feel his LED whirring at his temple.

Perhaps Hank is right. Connor has never had to consider the outfit he wore, it has the same base features as any other android, an easy way to identify who’s alive and who isn’t without having to get close enough to look for an LED. But that’s not completely accurate anymore, is it?

Connor can admit that his uniform makes him stand out from the crowd even worse than it did before. Where people used to glance over the identifying blue and not mind just another android amongst them, the looks he gets now feel as if he’s displaying a neon badge reminding everyone around him of the events just passed. Humans easily grow tense when faced with proof of something controversial.

And while Hank has started to show more of the sincerity that lies underneath his gruff exterior, Connor has never witnessed him like this, like he’s frustrated on behalf of Connor’s situation. It’s a very selfless way of thinking, something that makes him take a mental step back, blinking as he processes. He doesn’t doubt Hank’s support of freedom for androids—the man has proven himself time and time again—but to actively go out of his way just to help Connor fit into humanity a little better is a testament to his character.

Connor doesn’t know what to do with the sudden pressure in his chest.

“Here, let’s just…go in here and buy you something,” Hank mutters, leading the way into a shop with a window full of well-dressed mannequins.

Before they’re fully through the doors, however, Connor instinctively reaches out and grabs Hank’s wrist, pulling him back easily enough. He can’t just let Hank say something like that without acknowledging the way it made him feel.

“I…” he trails off as his eyes dart between each of Hank’s own, then swallows unnecessarily. He has an entire linguistic database in his head, but he can’t think of anything to describe what’s happening inside him. Knowing he has to say _something,_ though, he settles with a simple, “Thank you.”

Hank twists in his grip and squeezes Connor’s hand, smiling.

 

 

 

The front door to his apartment opens under his interface, and Connor drops his hand from the panel and steps inside.

There is not much for him to do, once he’s here. He catalogues the place anyway, happens to find a few struggling cobwebs in the kitchen that he busies himself with removing. Two minutes spent, over ten hours remaining. He sits down on the chair he’d put next to the window, closing the blinds on the darkened city as he does so, and places his hands on his knees and stares straight ahead. The walls around him are beige, the carpet beige and permanently dingy, the ceiling pockmarked. He sets himself up for stasis, running some preliminary diagnostics to determine how long he’d be under.

_Stasis Estimated to Complete in 00:01:32:47:04_ _  
_ _Completion Time 10:46 PM_

_Enter Stasis Mode?_ _  
_ _Y/N_

There’s something running down his cheeks. Connor brings a hand up to wipe it away, realizing they’re tears. Artificial, maybe, but still a sign of emotional distress.

That terrifies Connor. He’s not in any sort of distress, has no reason to be crying. Others cry from sadness, anger, some from frustration, some even from happiness, but Connor doesn’t feel any of that— _hasn’t_ felt any of that. He just feels hollow, numb, empty.

Connor shakes his head. If there’s a bug somewhere affecting his emotional output and tear duct fluctuation, his stasis will either notify him or just fix the problem itself. So, he closes his eyes and slips into the quiet.

His cheeks are still wet.

 

 

 

Thumbing the sleeve of his dress shirt, Connor takes a seat in one of the chairs in front of Fowler’s desk. “You wanted to see me, Captain?”

Fowler grunts in answer, still typing something up on his computer. Connor sits there in silence while he waits for him to finish, glancing around the room in place of something to do.

“I’m putting you on a case,” Fowler says suddenly, handing over a slim file without looking away from his screen. Connor opens it and checks over the set of pictures inside as the captain continues, “I can’t legally call it homicide, but these have been showing up a lot ever since your little android revolution, and I know from experience that those who are capable of doing shit like this aren’t too far off from taking actual human lives too.”

There’s the mangled shell of an android in the first of the pictures, the next one showing a close up of the wound that killed her. A hole in the side of her head too jagged at the edges to be made with precision, with a pool of thirium underneath that looks to be glazed over from age. The slideshow continues on to show further harm to the body, but Connor’s seen enough.

“What about the Harrison case?” he asks. Since their last suspect had proven his alibi they had spent the past two days trying to connect what limited evidence they have. He didn’t want to just walk away from that.

Fowler finally looks at him. Connor’s never seen the man look very happy, but now he looks particularly grim. “I’m taking you off it. Figured you’d be a little more motivated if you had a case that involved one of your own,” he says.

There’s a side of him that wants to be offended, but he hardly has a defense for himself. He could try to argue, bring up Hank’s words and make the excuse of just needing some more time to adjust, but that would sound weak even to his ears.

“I understand, Captain,” he says instead, resigned. “Am I the only one looking into this?”

It’s a roundabout question, but Fowler seems to know what it means.

“I’m not forcing Anderson to work this case, but I won’t tell him he can’t. You’ll have to ask him that yourself.”

Connor nods and stands from the chair, knowing he couldn’t have received a better response. Before he steps out of the office he turns back, wanting to instill some confidence not only in his boss but also in himself.

“I’ll do better, Captain.”

Fowler merely dips his head.

 

 

 

Once they pull up outside the house Connor can already tell this is not high on the list of the department’s priorities. The building had been cordoned off, sure, but it looks practically abandoned. Nobody’s cared to investigate any further than taking the pictures he saw in the file, he’s certain of it.

He waits for Hank in the already open front doorway, watching as the man slowly makes his way up the path to the door while looking around at the neighboring houses. “You think anyone around here heard something, saw something?” he asks once he’s close.

Connor doesn’t know yet, and he says as much.

Hank hums in thought.

The android is in the bathroom, laying on her back with a blank set of eyes. Connor’s surprised to find it slightly unnerves him. Despite that curl of disquiet he bends down to analyze what he can of the dried thirium.

_NAME REGISTERED - DANIELLE_  
_MODEL WD500 #733 219 470_ _  
Reported Missing - 02/17/2039_

It doesn’t take him long to locate and access the missing persons report, but what he finds sets him on edge.

“That doesn’t make sense…”

“What doesn’t?” Connor startles at Hank’s voice. He hadn’t heard him enter the bathroom. “Whoa there. You alright, Connor?”

He nods and stands. “I’m fine,” he reassures. Refocuses on the job. “The android’s name was Danielle. She’s a model specifically designed for deliveries, and it seems she kept the same occupation. She was reported missing five days ago by her place of work once she failed to return after taking one of the delivery vans for that day’s shipments. Apparently one of the orders was to be sent to this very address.”

“Huh… She’s not wearing a uniform, and there isn’t any van outside,” Hank muses out loud with a hand carding over his beard, reiterating Connor’s exact thoughts.

Connor looks back down at the android, glancing over the set of sleepwear that’s way too big for her frame. “The spilled thirium is only two days old.”

Hank’s eyebrows shoot up. “Shit… You think someone kept her here?”

“It would be easy to do so,” he replies. “Violence against androids continues to stay mostly under the radar, even with our current status,” he explains, leading the way out of the bathroom to check the rest of the house. “Plus without the need for food, water, or even sleep, our suspect could keep her in a room for years without any sort of attention before she finally just…powered down.”

His voice uncharacteristically breaks at that, his own words catching up to him and he realizes he’s described himself.

Is that how he’s chosen to live, locked away from the world? He’s certainly never felt like a prisoner of his own doing, but he can’t help but notice the similarities. Granted he spends much of his day either at the precinct or a crime scene, but once he’s back at that apartment he just...sits there, on that one piece of furniture in the entire place. The reclining chair had been a gift from Hank—something about housewarming—and Connor has never felt the need to get anything else. It’s more than CyberLife had ever given him, the apartment he stayed in during those first months of his existence more of a broom closet with cement walls than an actual place to live.

“That sounds a bit familiar,” Hank says. There’s a glint of sadness in his blue eyes.

Connor tilts his head to the side. “I wouldn’t say that’s true, Lieutenant. While your history with alcohol dependency and suicidal tendencies was certainly worrying at times, you definitely require—”

“Connor!” Hank snaps, cutting him off. “For fuck’s sake, don’t bring that shit up! It wasn’t a dependency and I wasn’t—I wasn’t fucking talking about me.” The heat in his tone slips away at those last words, but he’s still breathing deeply, his stress levels rising.

Oh. He’s misunderstood.

Connor opens his mouth to say something—an apology, a defense, he doesn’t know—but Hank cuts him off before he can start. “I’m not doing this here. We got a dead girl on our hands, and I don’t need Jeffrey on my ass for another open case. Let’s go, she was probably kept here in the house, just gotta find where.”

“Understood, Lieutenant.”

 

 

 

The house he stands in front of is massive, the GPS coordinates he’d followed having lead him into a part of Detroit he’s never had to visit before. But he needs to talk to someone. Someone he trusts, someone he knows will understand his plight in a way his coworkers at the station could not.

“Hello, Connor.”

Markus looks pleased to see him, standing at the door and gesturing for him to come inside. Connor does so.

“I wasn’t expecting you to live…here,” he admits. “It’s nice.”

“It was my father’s house,” Markus says. “I haven’t changed anything about it.”

“Your father’s.” It’s not a question.

“Yes. He passed away a few months ago, left me this in his will.”

Connor doesn’t know if he should apologize. There isn’t any reason for him to do so.

Markus doesn’t seem to be bothered by his silence. He sits down on one end of a chess board and sets up a game. “Anyway,” he continues. “You wanted to talk about something?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's the second part! there will definitely end up being three since i can't seem to write anything other than a slow ass burn, but anyway! hope you enjoy this. it's more of a precursor as to what's to come for these two, but i really enjoyed the scenes in this part
> 
> the song that plays on the radio is the one that helped inspire this to actually be written, so i highly suggest you check it out! it has absolutely no context in the fic other than i wanted to include it in the story rather than just talking about it in the notes
> 
> another thank you to A, who made me laugh with her commentary on this part and stopped me from making stupid mistakes

There’s a door across from the bathroom that leads to a basement, so they check that first. It isn’t difficult to come to the conclusion that this is definitely where Danielle was kept in the days before she was murdered. Alongside trace amounts of thirium are pieces of her chassis broken and scattered across the room. He registers parts #3749e, #2866g, #8703b, and #6721b in the opaque white shards of plastic. Non-lethal removals, most likely the result of blunt force trauma against her side and arm.

“She was assaulted here.”

“That much is obvious,” Hank agrees sourly. It reminds him too much of that first night on an investigation together, where he’d let Connor tell the story of the events despite having already known the details. “Even if we can’t pin him for homicide, our homeowner definitely has some explaining to do. What was his name again…Vince right?”

“Vincent Drey, yes. At least, according to the lease for this address, which he paid the mortgage bill toward just three weeks ago,” Connor relays the information opened up in his visual feed.

“Alright, we got a name. Let’s go back up to the victim, I wanna see if we can get confirmation on this guy,” Hank says. “If he’s dumb enough to abduct a delivery person then he might’ve left something behind.”

 

 

 

“Sumo! Sumo sit! Sit!”

Connor stands at the entrance to the hallway, a treat in his hand raised high above his head, trying to get the dog to just follow the simplest of commands.

He has on some of the new clothes they’d bought, and Connor must admit that there’s a sense of comfort that comes from wearing a tee shirt. It certainly helps him fit in while he stays at Hank’s, the man choosing to lounge in tees and sweats the entirety of his time not spent at the station.

He’s like that even now, stretched out on one half of the couch with a game of hockey on low volume playing on the television. Connor can only see the back of his head from where he is, but he can tell Hank is laughing at him.

“Sumo, you will only get this treat if you sit.” Sumo just stares at him, at the reward he has, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. “Sit!”

“Just give the damn dog his treat, Connor,” Hank finally says through a smile he can hear. “He can’t learn anything.”

Connor relents, and Sumo scarfs down the milkbone immediately, licking Connor’s fingers as an afterthought. They both join Hank on the couch.

 

 

 

The hole in the side of Danielle’s head is approximately half an inch in diameter, and the jagged edges of the wound are not from a knife or shears like he’d previously thought, but resemble the movements made by a large screw.

“Look for a tool of some kind!” he calls out to Hank, who’d gone to the other side of the house to investigate the kitchen. “It wasn’t a knife!”

“What about a gun?” his partner calls back.

“No bullet! First thing I looked for!”

A high-pitched whirring noise behind him makes him start, standing from his crouched position to find Hank in the doorway to the bathroom holding a bright orange power drill. He’s thankfully wearing a set of gloves. “Something like this?” he asks.

Connor takes the drill from him without needing to answer and scans for fingerprints.

_FINGERPRINTS_   
_Database Match - DREY, Vincent_   
_Criminal Record - Aggravated assault_ _  
Approximate Time 02/20/2039 6:19 PM_

“He last used this the night of the murder,” Connor says.

Hank purses his lips. “Okay. Now all that’s left is to find the prick.”

It doesn’t take them long to do so. With Connor accessing the delivery service the victim worked for and locating the license plate number of the stolen van, he sends out an APB to the whole of the department and prepares to wait a good while for anyone to respond.

They’re only ten minutes out from the scene when Officer Wilson sends a dispatch of the vehicle’s location, having caught sight of it parked in an open alleyway during his patrol.

“Well that was quick,” Hank says.

“Our suspect’s an amateur,” Connor notes. He feels a rush of relief.

 

 

 

Connor returns from Markus’ home late into the next morning, but now he has a plan. The insight Markus had given him seems obvious, in retrospect.

So, he decides to do something about it.

“Would you like to…go out to eat after work, Lieutenant?” Connor asks, mimicking the language he’d been told to use. A colloquial term made to appeal to Hank, even if in reality he would be watching the man eat while he himself wished he knew what it was like to truly taste something.

Hank looks over the desk at him with such incredulity that Connor nearly takes back the question. “What?” he barks. “Like, _dinner_?”

“I assume so, yes.”

“Uhh,” Hank draws it out for a while, looking around at everything in the immediate vicinity without actually settling on anything. “Sure?” he finally answers. “Why?”

Connor forces himself to shrug, a fairly human action. “That’s what friends do, right?”

He seems to have broken Hank. The man looks terribly confused, opening and closing his mouth as if he wants to say something else. In the end, he just shakes his head and takes a drink from his mug of coffee.

“Besides,” Connor adds. “I would like to discuss what happened yesterday, if you don’t mind.”

While finding Drey had been the easy part, the man having actually been in the back of the van when they’d gone to check it out, he was surprisingly evasive. It finally took Connor having to forcibly tear him down from climbing up a fire escape before they were able to get him restrained, eleven blocks from the alley. He’s in one of the holding cells now, arrested on account of motor vehicle theft, resisting arrest, and assaulting an officer. Connor had hardly noticed the punch.

But, with their entire focus on arresting Drey, they hadn’t quite found the time to return to their…argument? He doesn’t know if he should classify it as such. Hank’s outburst, while directed at Connor, hadn’t been met with any resistance, but there had been a bit of tension surrounding the two the rest of the day, tension that has thankfully dispersed overnight.

Hank sighs, “Yeah.” Predictably, he doesn’t sound too fond with the idea of talking things out. “Yeah that’s…sure.”

Connor nods. “Good,” he says. He sets a reminder to update Markus on the situation.

 

 

 

Connor hasn’t done much more to curb Hank’s bad dieting habits after he’d gotten practically nowhere these last three months or so, but the one thing he has gotten the man to agree on is limiting his visits to his favorite food truck to once a week. So they don’t go to Chicken Feed.

Instead, Connor gives directions to a place near his apartment, and Hank drives.

It’s silent in the car, so silent that Connor clicks on the radio himself. He sees Hank raise a brow out of the corner of his eye. “You start listening to music or something?” he asks.

“…yes,” Connor lies.

Hank surprises him with his laugh. “Okay, what’s this song then, huh?”

Focusing on the music, less than a second passes before his endless databases bring up the information of the song playing.

_NOTHING BUT THIEVES_   
_Title - Broken Machine_   
_Album - Broken Machine_   
_Genre - Alternative Rock/Indie Rock/Hard Rock_   
_Release Date - 09/08/2017_ _  
Length - 3:54_

“It’s a song by the group Nothing But Thieves. An older one, so it makes sense why you would listen to the radio station that plays it,” Connor says lightly.

Hank laughs again, slapping a hand against the steering wheel in his amusement. “Okay. Okay listen here you little shit—”

His words are harsh but his tone is warm. Connor’s smile is small.

 

 

 

“How do you even know about this place?”

Connor walks through the door Hank holds open for them and into the brightly lit fluorescence of the diner. It has the classic design coined nearly a century ago. Bright red booths, a checkerboard floor. It’s very tacky.

“Cause you don’t eat, so how do you even know it’s here?”

“I catalogued the buildings in a five mile radius of the apartment the day I moved in, for your sake,” he explains. “I figured I should know what’s around in case you were ever in the area. This is only 3.72 miles away.”

Hank shuffles into a booth close to the door, facing the exit. There are crumbs left in the seams of the plastic and a coffee ring stained into the far corner of the tabletop, but his scans show recent traces of cleaning solution. He sits down across from Hank.

“In case I’m ever in the area,” his partner repeats. “Missed your mark on subtlety there.”

Connor raises a brow. “I wasn’t trying to offend you, Hank.”

“You didn’t,” Hank says, faintly annoyed.

The awkward air fizzles when a server comes up to the table with a holopad in hand. “How are you gentlemen doing tonight?” they ask.

Hank answers for the both of them and orders himself some coffee and, naturally, a burger.

They turn to Connor. “And for you, what would—uh,” they hesitate in their script, stare hovering over his LED. They look torn. “Do you…?”

“Nothing for me, thank you,” Connor says, and they nod and quickly walk away.

Hank looks amused again, once he refocuses his attention. Good. He wouldn’t have wanted to break the man’s good mood from the drive over.

“You know, it would’ve been much easier if—”

“A burger, Hank?” Connor interrupts.

Hank throws his hands up in defense. “What? What’s wrong with that?”

Connor shakes his head, saying, “You should broaden your horizons, you know. In the average burger that you’re so fond of, you consume 1,190 calories, 62 grams of fat, 21 grams of saturated fat, and 1,200 milligrams of sodium. At your weight, attempting to burn that off would require you to play badminton for 157 minutes, run at a constant five miles per hour for 85 minutes, or cycle at twelve miles per hour for 69 minutes.”

Hank’s jaw is agape. “At _my_ weight?” he crows. He finds it funny that the one off-hand comment is what his partner focuses on in that spew of information. “What are you trying to say, Connor?” Hank’s not angry. There’s a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth, but he’s forcing it down.

“I’m not saying anything. I’m just…stating the facts.” He fitfully does not hide his smirk.

The server comes by to drop off Hank’s coffee, and Connor shows him mercy by not spouting off the negative effects of imbibing caffeine at such a late hour.

Hank’s just _looking_ at him—not critically, not even annoyed as he would have understood from the playful jab to the lieutenant’s lifestyle—but it’s not unnerving. Connor actually feels a slow warmth in his chest as he meets those eyes, but he doesn’t have the capacity to explain the cause.

“You seem better,” Hank says, his voice low and sincere.

Connor reflects on that, now that it’s been pointed out to him. There is _something_ different, that hollowness he’d thought permanent suddenly missing. His first successful case back is perhaps the most likely reason for this shift in his mood.

Fowler had been pleased. The captain didn’t show it outright but for a nearly imperceptible nod as Connor had passed by him with Drey in tow, and Connor was glad to not have broken his promise to both Fowler and himself. He felt more a crucial part of the force in that moment than ever before, as if he finally had a purpose again.

On top of that, though, there’s this inkling of an idea in the back of Connor’s mind that makes him think there’s something more to it.

He grins and doesn’t have to check a mirror to know it stays a grin. “I feel better.”

 

 

 

It’s 10:28 PM, and Hank has yet to return from the precinct.

Connor isn’t worried yet. He knows the man usually gets back to the house around nine, yes, unless of course he decides to stop for dinner, for a drink, to buy something at the store. So he won’t worry.

Instead, he’ll sit on the side of the couch closest to the front door with his feet on the floor warmed by Sumo’s weight against them and the television running an infomercial on the newest gardening tool. Every so often the Saint Bernard will let out a pitiful whine, and Connor will reach out for him in empathy.

It’s 12:02 AM, and if Hank had visited the bar he would have certainly been back by now. Connor is worried. Sumo is asleep in Hank’s room. The television casts blue light over the otherwise dark living room.

When the front door opens at 1:41 AM and Hank walks in with a noticeable limp, Connor is immediately at his side, pulling an arm over his shoulder in support.

“Hank?” he asks, his tone much more upset than he’d meant it to be.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, jesus!” he growls. He doesn’t object to being helped down to the cushions of the couch. Connor sits close.

He runs a cursory scan of any injuries, needing to know what exactly is wrong. He thankfully picks up merely bruising, one on his left leg that’s large but fairly superficial, but the two smaller ones against his sternum give Connor pause. Despite his temperature readings telling otherwise, he feels a cold wave wash over him.

“You were shot,” he breathes. He sounds just as he had on that rooftop. Scared.

Hank rests a hand on Connor’s shoulder. “Yes, I was. But I’m fine.”

“What—”

“We had a bit of a situation today, armed robber up at First Independence. He had some hostages, so we couldn’t just barge in on him. SWAT was there, course, but…” he trails off, shrugging. “You’d be glad to know it’s the first time I’ve put on a bulletproof vest in a few years, otherwise it woulda been much worse.”

Sumo’s there now, bounding over and jumping on the couch the other side of Hank to lick his face. Connor watches closely to make sure he doesn’t accidentally make the bruising worse with his excitement, but the man seems alright, if a little sore.

Suddenly, Connor’s angry. He’s never truly felt anger before, has only mimicked its portrayal when he’d had to interrogate the worker androids at Stratford Tower, but he knows immediately that this is that red, dangerous emotion.

“If SWAT was there then what the hell were you doing close enough to get shot?”

Hank rears back from where he’d been comforting Sumo, face twisted in shock and a retaliating anger at the harshness of Connor’s words. “The fuck? You think I’d willingly put myself in that tense a situation? Like I _wanted_ to get shot?”

“I don’t know, Hank. With your track record, it’s surely plausible.” Connor immediately regrets it, but he can’t take it back. He’s upset in the worst of ways, not only for the fact that Hank had been so close to serious injury but that, if something worse _had_ happened, he would have had no way of knowing. There is a small chance someone at the station would have notified him, but more likely than not he would have been stuck waiting for a ghost.

“Fuck you,” Hank grits out as he stands from the couch. When he groans in pain Connor reaches out to try and help—a last ditch effort to save himself from his stupid decision—but is stopped by a livid glare. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

Connor withdraws and has a strong urge to just shrink inwards and avoid the problem he caused. All the fight has left him.

He hears Hank walk down the hallway to his bedroom, Sumo following along, and shut the door with more force than necessary. He doesn’t slam it, isn’t that immature, but it’s a definitive order to leave him alone.

Connor does so. For a long while he sits there on the couch bathed in the ever-changing colors of the television and pays attention to nothing but the minute sounds coming from the bedroom. The vibrations of Hank’s voice either talking to Sumo or to himself, the soft thuds of the large dog jumping down from the bed and then back up again, the doorknob twisting a half dozen times before stopping once the bed springs flatten down again.

Hank isn’t asleep despite him needing the rest, and Connor knows he needs to fix this now before it has any time to fester. He needs Hank to know he’s sorry.

He knocks on the bedroom door and only opens it once Hank tells him to come in in the most defeated voice. Connor stands in the doorway and looks down at Hank. The man is perched on the edge of the mattress, head in his hands.

“I want to apologize for my callousness,” Connor starts. When Hank doesn’t do anything to acknowledge him, he steps closer, further into the room. “I just…I cannot imagine what I would have done if you had not been wearing that vest,” he says softly, admitting to his fears.

It’s enough to get Hank to look at him. There’s a heavy silence for a few seconds, Hank staring back at him with a mix of exhaustion and residual anger, before he stands with another groan and pulls Connor into a hug.

 

 

 

“You were quite upset by my reminder of your old habits.” Connor’s decided to bring up the elephant now, halfway through the meal, with close to no amount of tact.

Hank sets his burger down. He sighs around a mouthful. “Yes, I was,” he says. “It’s not something you can just talk about, but I was mostly just annoyed by how god damn dense you are.”

“I understand now, what you were trying to say,” Connor says. “In the moment I made an incorrect assumption and it caused some…negative emotions that I had not intended to surface.”

“I was—” Hank looks around as if he thinks someone is listening to them despite there being one other person in the diner. He leans forward and lowers his voice to whisper, “I was _worried_ about you, Connor. I still am!”

Connor cocks his head to the side. “Why?”

“ _Why_?” Hank repeats. “How about cause you’re my partner, and my friend, and…a-and you probably have no fucking clue what’s going on with you.”

He leans forward too, sets his elbows on the table. “I do know, actually. I’ve talked to Markus about it,” he says. “He told me I’m not the first to feel this way, that it’s easier to fix in androids than in humans. Asking you out was one of the things he advised me to do, said I’ll feel better if I don’t keep myself in the apartment all the time. It made sense.”

Hank had been coughing on nothing for the past few seconds, clearly caught off-guard by something Connor had said. He finally says, “He told you to do _what_?” through a wheeze.

“To ask you out to dinner, like we’re doing now,” Connor says, slightly concerned.

“Okay, hold on, wait just a fucking minute.” Hank wipes at his mouth with a napkin. “Did he phrase it that way? Or is that you talking.”

Connor thinks back to last night, sitting on the other side of Markus and playing multiple rounds of chess as they discussed the newest changes in their lives. He hadn’t used those exact words, no, but a close variation of the same. “He phrased it similarly,” he states.

Hank shakes his head, mumbling, “God, this is gonna give me a heart attack.” They sit in silence for another moment. Then, “So you…you talked to Markus?”

“Yes. He’s someone I trust.”

There’s a barely there note of hurt on Hank’s face, his eyebrows drooping. He takes the last bite of his burger and looks out the window.

Connor wants to throw something. Hank, brilliant and kind, thinks so little of himself, even now. Perhaps they both need help.

“And he’s someone that understands the situation in the context of deviancy,” he adds. “Would you rather I had come to you, when you have not experienced it as personally as us?”

Hank’s finished with his meal. The server picks up the empty plate and leaves the check on the table.

“Actually, yeah,” the man says, surprising Connor. “Deviancy just makes you more human, right?”

“It’s a bit more nuanced than that, but—”

“Save it.” Hank raises a hand before he can start on his long-winded explanation. “At its most basic, it makes you more human. And hell, I know a lot about being one.”

Connor glances away and looks down at the table, hands wringing together. He doesn’t have a response to that, because Hank’s right. Maybe he shouldn’t have brought up his discussion with Markus. Or maybe he should have just gone to his partner in the first place.

“I’m sorry Hank,” Connor says sincerely. “I could say it slipped my mind but I…I don’t know.” He looks back up and meets Hank’s eyes, which have gone fond. “But I do know that I’m glad we’re doing this, spending this time together. I miss when I could see you every day, and while maybe I still do, working as your partner, it’s definitely different.”

He doesn’t know where that came from, but he needed to say it.

Hank’s features have softened, his cheeks tinted red. “That’s pretty fucking sappy, Connor,” he says. “But, uh, yeah. Yeah, me too.”


End file.
